Case Study Description of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?
This case is available in only hard copy format (HBP does not have digital distribution rights to the content). As a result, a digital Educator Copy of the case is not available through this web site.Merrill Lynch (ML) is at a crossroads. Stan O'Neal became its CEO and implemented a radical cost-cutting program. In addition, the company dot-com continues to recover from the fallout from the Enron and dot-com scandals. What are the future prospects for ML? Can the firm compete against its traditional competitors or against the recently merged Goliaths of banking, such as Citigroup?
Authors :: Boris Groysberg, David Kiron, Paul M. Healy
Swot Analysis of "Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?" written by Boris Groysberg, David Kiron, Paul M. Healy includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ml Dot facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ml Dot, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ml Dot operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ml Dot
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ml Dot
Strengths Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ml Dot in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ml Dot to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ml Dot to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ml Dot has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ml Dot is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Ml Dot is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Boris Groysberg, David Kiron, Paul M. Healy can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Ml Dot has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ml Dot to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ml Dot has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Ml Dot is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Ml Dot is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Ml Dot has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ml Dot in the sector have low bargaining power. Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ml Dot to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ml Dot is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Strong track record of project management
– Ml Dot is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?, it seems that the employees of Ml Dot don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?, is just above the industry average. Ml Dot needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ml Dot has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? HBR case study mentions - Ml Dot takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Boris Groysberg, David Kiron, Paul M. Healy suggests that, Ml Dot is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ml Dot has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ml Dot is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Ml Dot has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ml Dot has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ml Dot is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Ml Dot needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ml Dot to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Ml Dot can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Ml Dot has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ml Dot to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Ml Dot can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ml Dot can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Ml Dot can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ml Dot has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ml Dot to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? case study. Ml Dot can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ml Dot can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Ml Dot to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ml Dot can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ml Dot operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ml Dot to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Ml Dot to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ml Dot can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Ml Dot can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ml Dot in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ml Dot demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Ml Dot needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Ml Dot can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Ml Dot in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Ml Dot needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Ml Dot business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Ml Dot needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing wage structure of Ml Dot
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Ml Dot.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead?, Ml Dot may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ml Dot high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ml Dot can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ml Dot has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ml Dot needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Merrill Lynch in 2003: Sunny Skies Ahead? is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Ml Dot needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.